Tempers flare over Volusia chair’s public comments

Thursday

Feb 20, 2014 at 10:45 AMFeb 20, 2014 at 5:57 PM

By Andrew Gantandrew.gant@news-jrnl.com

DELAND — Several members of the Volusia County Council want to consider removing County Chair Jason Davis from the county’s election canvassing board after hearing him tell a crowd at a community meeting: “You don’t like the people that are doing the job, you vote ‘em out!”The meeting — where Davis met with Osteen residents concerned about Volusia’s use of state right-of-way land to build a public trail past their homes — was audio-recorded. And council members who listened to the recording said they were surprised to hear Davis tell his audience: “November, that’s how you change governments.”Council members who have supported the trail right-of-way felt it was an attack on them.“Mr. Davis, you don’t shoot your troops in the back, and that’s how I felt after listening to the recording,” District 3 Councilwoman Deb Denys told him near the beginning of Thursday morning’s meeting. “You did a disservice to your colleagues and you did a disservice to staff.”Davis appeared taken by surprise and argued the meeting wasn’t meant to be political: “Basically what I said is, it doesn’t matter what you want, this thing is going down this road,” he said. “It’s going to take an act of federal Congress to change it.”The county is using a law known as the Murphy Act to use old state right-of-way along Osteen-Maytown Road to build a segment of the East Central Regional Rail Trail. Some residents along the road have protested heavily because they weren’t aware of the decades-old right-of-way reservations, and they feel like land they thought was theirs is being stolen.Davis and At-Large Councilwoman Joyce Cusack have been sympathetic to their cause, and both were at the community meeting earlier this month.Davis told the Osteen crowd at that Feb. 6 meeting: “I don’t know how all this got through as quickly as it did and how people didn’t follow the rules. You want to know how to change the government? I’ll tell you how to change the government. You change it in November.”He added: “You don’t like the people that are doing the job, you vote ‘em out. If you like the people that are doing the job, you damn well make sure you vote ‘em in. You keep ‘em there.”Davis also told the group that there are several issues he’d like to bring forward as county chair, but he can’t. “I don’t have the support right now,” he said. He also said he was sorry that the county manager and other officials didn’t attend the meeting.District 4 Councilman Doug Daniels raised the issue Thursday and said he’d heard Davis was interfering in political races. Four council races are up for election this year: Districts 1, 3 and 5 as well as the at-large seat. So far, all but District 1, where Pat Patterson is the incumbent, are contested.Councilwoman Pat Northey, whom the protesters have called their “public enemy number one” on the Murphy Act issue, was out of the country at the time of the meeting and said she was “fairly appalled” when she listened to the 2 1/2-hour recording later. She is running for the at-large seat against Cusack and Deltona city commissioner Webster Barnaby.“Those comments were made, and they were unsettling at best,” Northey said. “...A template has been set, comments have been made, and it’s never going to be the same. One thing we have not done is bring that kind of dialogue into our council roles, and that was done at this meeting.”Patterson agreed and said the meeting was “not good cricket, as far as I’m concerned.” District 2 Councilman Josh Wagner said the council needs a transcription before it makes any decisions.The three-member canvassing board oversees elections in Volusia County by testing the voting systems, examining ballots, sending the results to the state and performing recounts. The three members are the county chair, a county judge and the supervisor of elections, Ann McFall. McFall said Thursday she doesn’t know of any precedent for any sitting member being removed in a political conflict.The council agreed to have the Osteen meeting transcribed. The recording was posted on the county’s website Thursday, with a transcription expected Feb. 28.